The raid followed those on several addresses connected to the bombers in the northern English city of Leeds on Tuesday in which one man was arrested on suspicion of the "commission, instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism".

On Wednesday police were given until Saturday to continue questioning the unnamed 29-year-old.

Police also searched two cars on Tuesday that had been left at Luton train station 48 km north of London, finding some explosives.

Security experts said the four bombers -- who included a teaching assistant for disabled children -- would have received training and direction from a more senior militant.

"He would have arrived in the UK a knowledgeable bomb maker, trained in the art of evading the authorities by keeping a low profile ... He likely left the UK immediately before the bomb blasts, so as to ensure escape," consultancy group Janusian Security Risk Management said in an analysis for clients.

As police -- who have been deluged with calls from relatives of the missing and eye witnesses of the blasts as well as still and video images from cellphones -- appealed for more to come forward, several domestic newspapers identified more suspects.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Home Secretary Charles Clarke challenged the European Union on Wednesday to set aside civil liberties concerns and agree to new anti-terrorism measures such as the compulsory storage of phone and Internet usage records.

(...)

"I argue that it is a fundamental civil liberty of people in Europe to be able to go to work on their transport system in the morning without being blown up and subject to terrorist attack," he said.

"The question of civil liberties has to be treated in a proportionate way. It is a different civil liberty question whether you have CCTV or not, or whether you retain telecommunications data, or whether you have biometrics on an ID card, to whether somebody is tortured in a country to which they are sent," Clarke added.

But the investigation received a serious setback when it was discovered the CCTV cameras on the bus that blew up were not working so detectives will not get vital images of the bomber.

One senior Yard source said: "It's a big blow and a disappointment. If the cameras had been running we would have had pin-sharp close-up pictures of the person who carried out this atrocity.

"We don't know if the driver forgot to switch them on or if there was a technical problem but there are no images."

The bus had four cameras - one covering people getting on, the second at the exit doors and one on each deck scanning the length of the vehicle.

end Mirror snip

I assume, from press reports, that these cameras carry tape and do not transmit directly to remote locations where police view action (and do their own taping) in real time.

If so, I wonder whether the tape in the bus cameras would have survived the blast. However, it is more than odd that the cameras in bus were not functioning on the morning of 7/7.

This is classic and obvious op control. Turn off the cameras. Leave no visual evidence.

That the police would regard these non-functioning cameras as merely strange and sad is also a classic reaction. It speaks of a naive level of ignorance that is massive. Of course, I'm sure there are London cops in the ranks who assume turning off those cameras was pure op control. And at the top of the London police, there are certainly men who are issuing releases they know to be false.

If you were a cop, what would you think? A bus is blown up, killing and maiming many people. Your first line of investigation on that day is the bus cameras. They didn't work. They were turned off. Would you shrug your shoulders and decide it was all a coincidence?

JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com

SOURCE - http://www.nomorefakenews.com/

(...)

The Mirror

13 July 2005

THE SUICIDE MURDERERS

"HE has gone to London with some friends" - what worried parents said when they called bomb helpline.

By Jeff Edwards And Patrick Mulchrone

All four were caught on video at the station. A police source said yesterday: "On the CCTV all of the men look completely normal.

"They are dressed in casual clothes with big rucksacks on their backs and look for all the world like four men off on a backpacking holiday, instead of four mass murderers on the last leg of their deadly mission."

(...)

Yesterday one man was arrested in police swoops on six addresses in Leeds and Dewsbury. In one of the raids a large stock of explosives - enough for several more bombs - was found.

Four controlled explosions were carried out on a suspect car dumped at Luton station, Herts, since last Thursday.

(...)

THE car - a Nissan Micra or Renault Clio - is thought to have been hired by sports mad Tanweer who has not been seen by his family since Thursday.

His best friend Mohammed Answar, 19, insisted yesterday there was no way Tanweer could have been involved.

He said: "It's impossible. It's not in his nature to do something like this. He's the type of guy who would condemn things like that."

(...)

In London Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, Head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad, said: "We're conducting a complex investigation which is moving at great speed.

"We're checking the movements of three men who came to London from West Yorkshire to find out if they all died in the London explosions."

A security services spokesman said: "We're certain the bombers were not acting alone.

"Where are the plotters and the planners? They may have already fled the country. But they may be lying low ready to launch a second wave in the next weeks or months."

Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the operation was intelligence-based and "directly connected" to last week's London blasts.

He said: "There have been a series of searches carried out in Yorkshire. Those searches are still going on.This activity is directly connected to the outrages on Thursday."

Sir Ian said it was "likely" there would be another attack but insisted the terrorist threat could be defeated.

He said: "Another attack is likely, there's no doubt about that. But when - who knows?

"Together with New York we are sister cities joined in resolve. But we are both major terrorist targets."